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Gnolls
Gnoll stats have been revised... because in my opinion they were lackluster and frankly stupid. Racial stats are at bottom of page. Note: Gnolls in typical settings are a cliched evil stab-for-xp race. Gnolls in this setting are based somewhat on that idea but greatly expanded upon. They are a race of nihilistic warriors with a deep connection to their spiritual beliefs. Lore: * Desert Warriors ** Skirmishers - Favor hit and run, or storming ** Favor hide armor at most. Desert is too hot for anything else. ** Weaponcentric ideology. A warrior makes his weapons just as the weapon makes a warrior. ** One of the few races with dedicated close combat soldiers. *** Following their subjugation and subsequent liberation by the Duvel'Cai the Gnolls have taken up slavery. *** Gnoll raiders favor using the Duvel'Cai missile slabs and ride on them. *** They utilize long whips with a weighted claw on the end. It is designed to catch on itself allowing them to fly by ships and pluck crew from the deck. *** Gnoll raiders will grab crew and then retreat. Those operating with the Duvel'Cai do this to force the crew below decks allowing the much slower city to catch up to the ship * Biology ** Gnolls have strong digitigrade legs giving them long strides. Their feet are very strong and bony, designed to splay out on desert sand to find purchase. ** Gnolls have a mixture of stripes and spots on them that form whorls and patterns. Each pattern is unique to that gnoll much like a finger print. *** Many rituals involve The gnoll markings. **** Prior to a raid the pattern will be painted over with blessed pigments thought to act as a form of spirit armor to turn blades and curses. **** Curses of binding require a gnoll's markings which act as its true name. ***** Matrons typically take these markings and record them on specially preserved albino gnoll hides to use in conjunction with necromancy and scrying. ***** Spouses are ritually scarred following a pattern chosen by the Matron. The pattern typically has ancestral origins for their tribe. The scarification is a literal interpretation of being bound body and soul to another. ***** This is seen as a great honor as you will be in a far stronger position in the next world. *** Albinos - Seen as non-people as they lack the visible pattern and whorls. They are prized as valuable ritual components. Albinos are typically kept as favored slaves, a matron who has a reliable source of albino blood is very respected. **** Albino blood is used in many rituals, if the matron favors you albino blood mixed with pigments will be painted over your pattern. **** Albinos are called ghosts or living dead. They are thought to not have any form of afterlife. **** Albinos are taken at birth by the matrons and attendants who act as midwives. ***** Gnoll physiology mirrors that of hyenas so they give birth to litters but due to the make up of their sex organs (pseudo penis) birth giving is a both a welcome and anxious affair. All the gnolls of the tribe giving birth around the same time helps when it comes to caring for the mothers. ***** Albino pups are spirited away by the Matrons lest the mother try to kill the pup for having given birth to an abomination (in their religious views). The Matron tells them it was a still birth which as far as their lore goes is true. **** Albinos are force fed from birth and grow very fat. This is because more blubber means more blood for rituals. ***** They grow up on a thick milkshake of fermented milk, butter, brains, rendered fat and ground bones. During times of plenty they might taste meat and marrow both of which are savored by the tribe. Favored albinos may receive meat from their matron. ***** They look like sumos ***** Generations ago when the gnolls were united behind a single banner albinos served as hemotheurges, mages that utilized blood, they were living siege weapons. The echos of that power are what the Matrons are utilizing in their magic. ***** When an albino dies his hide is taken and magically preserved. A pristine white hide that still feels warm to the touch. ****** The Matron will paint the pattern of a gnoll on the hide which gives her great power over the individual. ****** She can communicate with them across any distance. ****** She can command or bind them. Where they touches the hide the connected gnoll feels it. ****** A very dark art can utilize the hide as a form of ressurection by sewing a living gnoll into the hide (typically a younger one due to the whole size thing) the deceased gnoll can possess the body and eventually come to life once again. ******* It's a very very creepy process for several years the gnoll looks like he is wearing two faces that don't necessarily have the same expression. ** Bloodlines: *** Fane-Blooded: Your typical Bone crushing gnolls based on spotted and striped gnolls. *** Aard-Blooded: Based on the Aardwolf. **** Smaller gnoll breed. **** Lacks the ability to crack bones with their teeth to suck out marrow. **** Has a long tongue for eating insects. **** Lighter on their feet, favored sneaking and stabbing. **** Mohawk of course hair that runs from their head down their spine. Commonly shirtless. Mohawk raises partly consciously partly unconsciously. During combat it will raise. When frightened it will raise quickly, a sort of poof response. ***** Mohawn is typically dyed brilliant colors as a sort of living banner bearrer for the tribe. ***** Mohawk will be covered with mud and dust if the Aard-Gnoll is trying to be sneaky *** Ur-Blooded: The prehistoric type of Hyena **** Big, brawny, the Fane bloodline can crack bones with their jaws but these can... crack stone? It's kinda hard to go logically up from that. They got more biting power either way. * History ** Gnollish War of Extermination *** Gnolls raid alot of the cities and towns along the edge of the great desert. When the Bastion Empire expanded to take over those territories they did not sit idly by when the gnolls raided them. *** The gnolls were unable to defend themselves when Bastion arrived with gunships. The warships chased the gnolls deep into the desert and caused the first great clan moot in several generations **** Great Clan Moot (name pending) is a meeting of all the Matrons of the Gnolls. It is only called when great peril is faced by the gnoll race as a whole. The Moot functions effectively as a democrasy. Lots of unspoken rules. Any Matron can call for a Moot, but it is not done lightly and if they call for it they can only present they cannot cast a vote. ** Gnoll history is recorded by oral tradition. *** Stories and songs are passed down through tribes. Songs are typically passed along like worker songs or choirs. When travelling a gnoll might start singing the opening verses and other voices quickly join in. *** Gnolls typically break into song when they are travelling during the daylight and hunt at night. *** Most gnolls find it very difficult and unnerving to sleep in silence. *** Songs typically tell the tale of great ancestors **** During sombre times the gnolls might sing of their fall from the grace of their god, but it is not a tale told to outsiders and a source of great sadness and shame. ** Matrons then to use clay tablets with clawmarks for their own written language. *** The Stone-Claw tongue is very self referential and utilizes magical theory and alot of symbology making it very difficult to learn, very open to induvidual interpretation, but very information dense. **** The information density is very important as it allows for magical treatise to be recorded and transported very easily but also means that shattering a tablet is a great lose as there are so very few duplicates. **** All matrons produce their own tablets recording thoughts, feelings, theories and experiences which are traded among other Matrons when tribes pass close enough together. **** One tablet will take many days to read as you have to decipher the writer's intentions when writting. **** Stone-Claw trains new matrons in deciphering texts and understanding others. **** A variant of Stone-Claw is becoming a bit more common in the Termite Hive City across the Desert, commonly called Mud-Tongue or Mud-Paw as words and symbols are used from Stone-Claw and carved into the clay walls of the giant termite mound. They are carved by wetting the walls and then using a finger or claw to write the word. It lacks the depth and complexity of Stone-Claw and only a few words are well known enough to be of relevance. ***** Mud-Paw text is typically smeared with a paste of fertilizer to encourage bioluminescent fungus growth. ***** There is totally a bar with the Mud-Paw word for 'Open' on the wall. * Religion ** The living world is a punishment for past weakness and cowardice. *** In reality the GODs that the Gnolls worshiped threw the race through the hole in the Great Machine inorder to escape themselves. *** The Gnolls believed their gods abandoned them due to their own weakness, they were found wanting and therefore cursed to an unlife away from nirvana. ** Holy Warriors. ** Obsessed with the afterlife. *** Spirit Weapons - a weapon created from the bones of something the warrior has killed by hand **** Creatures killed by the spirit weapon are believed to serve them in the afterlife. **** Gnoll warriors recite the names of those they have killed as a prayer to take strength from their immortal slaves in the living world. ** Names are sacred to Gnolls. *** Gnolls do not give their names to outsiders. *** Gnolls honor worthy warriors they have killed by renaming them in Gnollish. *** Fodder or unworthy beings gnolls have killed are considered little more than currency in the afterlife and are not given a name. They are typically dedicated to an ancestor or god the gnoll wishes to emulate after the battle. *** Enemies that the Gnolls feel truly deserve punishment are given a name in Gnollish, an effigy is created of the deceased with the name carved into it. The effigy is burned in sacrifice to their deity of death and the name is purposefully forgotten never to be spoken of again. *** A grave insult a gnoll might give to another warrior is to dedicate his death to a god of hearth and home before the fight. Basically saying not only is he worthless and beneath your immortal soul collection, but he is worthless as a warrior. ** Skulls are taken from the dead. The skulls are prepared by the village shaman, cleaned via domesticated carrion beettles (the beetles as part of the ritual and influence of their nascent idols chew patterns into the skulls). The skulls are kept by the village and traded between eachother. On holy days skulls are ritually crushed in dedication to various gods of hearth or war. * Matriarchal society ** Females occupy the spiritual leadership role wholely. Females typically occupy the normal leadership roles. ** Males are often not in roles of leadership but can still gain prestige. *** Female leaders typically have a harem of holy warriors. Which are kinda a mix of husband and monk warriors (in dedication not class). **** Female leaders can be challenged for their role. It is a fight to the death. The victor claims the loser in the afterlife including all of her souls and her husbands. **** The victor can also chose to spurn the challenger's soul or dedicate it to one of the idols. This is seen as bringing great shame to the deceased and to her husbands. ***** Those husbands who have been so shamed do not join the beserker packs for there is no glorious afterlife for them. They are cast out and typically die, forgotten and alone in the desert. *** Marriage is uncommon most relationships are informal. **** Marriage is most often a male swearing allegiance to a Matron. A knight-esq angle. **** Marriage pacts are sealed with ritual scarification. **** Part of the wedding ceremony involves crushing many skulls (the Matron provides the dowry) and the remains are ground into a fine powder. The powder is added to the wounds. The blood and bone dust (along with a bit of passive divine magic) form into a hard dermal plate that bonds to the flesh. **** This ritual is renewed periodically by a set passage of time (hard to say year when the calendar is all kinds of messed up). The old dermal bone is peeled off (very painful) and new dermal bone added. ***** This is generally a horrific ritual for non-gnolls to watch. The Gnolls do it in complete silence and then celebrate with a giant festival. ***** Holy husbands who have served for a long time have plats of dermal bone that while limiting some movement are tough enough to turn aside blades. ****** Likely some manner of story feat that grants natural armor. *** When their wife dies the males ritually scar themselves and forgo almost all worldly possessions. The male husbands join warbands and drink toxic potions that cause rage and hallucinations. They are where the world get's the idea of the rabid slobering monster. The husbands are beserkers and continue to fight taking as many people with them into the afterlife before being reunited with their beloved. **** Berserkers typically create a ritualized weapon from the bones of their beloved. The most favored of her husbands creates a helm from her skull so that her jaws might still know the taste of victory. **** Some berserkers peel off the dermal bone plates before going into battle. The pain drives them into a frenzy where they cannot tell friend from foe. ***** Tribes that have a band of berserkers with them will generally dose the berserker up and then affix ropes to the dermal plates. The gnoll charges ripping the plates out and goes into a bloody frenzy. ***** The berserker wants to die, and wants to take as many people with him as possible. ***** After the battle the bone plates are once again reapplied using the ground bone dust from skulls. *** Revision: **** Matrons make husbands and wives of powerful gnolls whom they wish to serve them. **** This translates somewhat as the social idea of a knighthood. **** Spouse Types: ***** Scarab Priests ****** Scarab Priests see to the spiritual needs of their Matriarch. They are her voice and act in her stead for religious ceremonies. ****** The Scarab Priest title is an immense honor. ******* When the Matriarch dies the Scarab Priest ritually mummifies themself and is entombed in one of the totems of their clan. The scarab swarm lives on carrying with it a part of their soul. ***** Exarchs of Moon and Sands ** War Chieftains have long lives drenched in fighting. As gnoll fighting styles include alot of kicks, bites and curbstomps the feet, shins and face of their warriors get a leathery pocked appearance. While most races find this look fearsome gnolls see this as a mark of beauty much like how some people 'like a man in uniform'. *'Nomadic Society' **Bit like the Dothraki - Large group of nomads. **Gnolls do not have family units. They have a festival of birth and fertility. All children born the year between the festival are raised as a group in a large creche. ***The festival of fertility is typically arrange to coincide when several gnoll tribes migratory paths interconnect. This ensures a good mixing of the genepool. There is lots of feasting and drinking (Tequila and fermented milk). ***Several months later when the tribes have since parted ways they hold another festival. An anxious time of birthing. (Queening since Hyenas are more related to cats and that's the term for cat birthing as opposed to whelping). The Matron has a retinue of albinos and matrons in training who oversee the festival. They act as midwives as Gnoll birth is a dangerous affair at the best of times. ***Gnolls give birth to small litters of 3 to 6 pups. They are very under developed and need constant care at this point. The pups are shared among the new mothers in a large communal (smelly) tent. Motherhood duties are shared between the new mothers and the few elders who have experience with the role. ***Once the pups reach toddler-hood they receive less direct supervision and are instead looked after by the whole tribe. Most gnolls do not know their parents and only know that they were born to their mother's tribe. Adult gnolls typically act as aunts/uncles to the children. ***Children typically end up hero worshiping the popular members of the tribe. It's not uncommon to see a well respected warrior with a gaggle of giggling gnoll pups at their heels. Gnoll pups tend to, in a manner, chose their own parents, or at least parental figures. They'll end up following an adult and learning from them. ***Education in gnoll tribes is very adhoc. There is no standardized education and most gnolls are illiterate aside from the Matrons and their retinue. Lessons are typically taught to the children by one adult deciding they will teach something and scooping up a gaggle of children to demonstrate. The gnoll children have strong ties to one another and a strong group identity and tend to work to educate eachother too. Nevertheless youth mortality is still high due to the hands off parenting. ***Gnoll children chose their own names. When they do it is done as part of a ritualized spirit walk with alot of drugs hosted by the Matron. The gnoll has a very trippy hallucinogenic vision and during that period of enlightenment decide their name. They tell this name to the Matron who will then announce it to the tribe as part of a coming of age festival. ****Gnoll children tend to end up calling themselves a bunch of names. One week one might like the idea of being called Destroyer, the next week something else equally as edgey and dumb. Which is why it is only fully decided when they near adulthood. ****There are no orphans in gnoll lands as all children are raised communally. ****Large groups of brothers and sisters ****Probably alot of kissing cousins due to the lack of a clear family tree. But this isn't FATAL so we're not going to think about those implications. ****Could probably explain it away as socially they are attracted to differences. Different coat colorings different etc. Could also lend into why they take slaves, they cherish differences. Could be an intensely xenophilic society balanced by a nihilistic spiritual warrior idea. ****"I love other races, they're so fun to fight and kill" or "I want to collect other races for my afterlife." *'Alternative Racial Options:' **Other Gnoll Tribes broken up by general habitat ***Savannah ****Gnolls of the rolling grassland savannahs have a somewhat easier life style ****Traditional horseman traits *****Replace horses with Dire Honey Badgers *****DHB (In world name pending) are a corner stone of tribe life. Babies are reared in paposes carried by their would be riders. Babies are fed a version of what is given to albinos, except that the milkshake is supplemented with marrow and heart meat. *****DHB have their coat bleached and dyed to match that of their rider. Not only are they considered family, they are considered to have the soul of a gnoll. ******Their rider commonly keeps track of its kills and helps it to make offerings to the gods by crushing skulls. *****Multiple breeds of DHB ******Normal: Which is to say a dire honey badger. ******Pygmy: a normal honey badger ******Angora: Long furred requires many hours of grooming commonly kept by matrons ******Ur: What a dire wolf is to a normal wolf, this is to a dire honey badger. Named for the stronger breed of gnoll. The Ur-Badgers are living siege weapons *****Predominately made up of Aardgnolls but have longer courser hair. ******When their hair rises it looks like a rainbow cockatoo ****Thematic role: To introduce a softer side of Gnoll culture. The DHBs are like family, occupying the same social roles as dogs and horses. A dead dire badger is mourned just as one would mourn a dead family member. ***Termite City ****Those that live in the only gnollish hub of civilization. ***Urbanized ****Those that have forsaken Gnollish heritage and instead live as others do. *****Remove: spirit weapon and reduce bite by 1 step *****Get: Extra languages and skill bonuses Unbulleted notes: Fleshing out more on the gnolls. Gnolls do not have any form of native permanent residence save one but I’ll get to that in a bit. What they have are a massive amount of tents that the tribe use while travelling through the everflowing desert. They are always on the move. There is a day night cycle in the desert, as there are a multitude of mini suns travelling in weird orbits which provide the gradient of day to night. 50% of the suns out at the same time is noon. 75% is a super rare dangerous time. 100% is spoken of like an apocalyptic tale. Gnolls as a race likely hold the most solid land of any of the races as they pretty much own 90% of the desert. Other races like the cats and other unnamed races live along the edge of the desert. Where its less flowing dunes and there’s some form of stability. Though rivers of sand still flow constantly over the edge (complete with sand sharks and junk). Gnolls leave the desert periodically to raid towns much like the Vikings. No one is able to retaliate against them because of the undead. Gnoll mummia: Life is cruel in the desert. The infirm, crippled or cowards are cast out of tribes. Before they do the Matron of the tribe gives them a parting curse. The afflicted (they only ever do this to tribe members i.e. gnolls but in theory works on other races) wander the desert until they die at which point they quickly mummify. When the rare rains fall upon the deserts it causes a mini zombie apocalypse. Undead gnolls rise from the ground and attack anything living with the sole exception of gnolls (unless they have the curse, they can sense their own). The mummia are activated by the rains and begin wandering the deserts mindlessly. If they pick up the scent of a gnoll tribe they will follow it like a lost puppy. Often the gnoll zombies get stuck at the bottom of dunes or in piles of sand waiting until something living happens by or they catch the scent of a gnoll tribe. Gnoll Mummia are welcomed back to the tribe as long lost friends. They are seen as having paid the penance for weakness and are made welcome. They are often decorated too. The mummification process helps with the smell and potential diseases, little more than skeletons in a leather bag. They are utilized as laborers for the tribe. Not unusual to string hammocks between zombies and allow them to carry you as they follow the tribe. Other things like chieftain’s tents are pulled on a sled by teams of mummia. Basically they take the place of a horse in labor and transport. Gnolls are very fast on their feet so they don’t typically need a mount. The mummia is also likely where skullcrushing originated from. They are believed to be fully resurrected (though sans vocal cords and etc) and have the soul of their previous life (they are wrong, but that’s what they believe). Since a mummia ceases to be after the head is destroyed they believe the skull is the house of the soul. Which is why they take heads and use skulls for their blood sacrifices (way easier to transport skulls instead of slaves and etc, plus the body is edible). The skulls are crushed underfoot as an offering, typically to their idols. Often skulls form a pseudo-currency, much like how you could pay to have sins forgiven before you commited them you can purchase the skull from someone else and as far as the gods are concerned it was your sacrifice to give. Now, the desert is this massive no-man’s land. Gnolls are well adapted for it, but other races will die, either due to dangers like giant ant lions, or the ever present threat of zombies. Which is why no one can retaliate against the gnolls. Until the old empire took over. They took one look at the sh!t show and sent in a bunch of warships. Unlike the catfolk cities, or various other smaller ships these couldn’t be outrun or outfought. It was a long bloody campaign of extermination. Gnolls were seen as a barbaric pest, a blight on the empire of old. The cats were the ones who brokered a deal and turned the gnolls into a slave race. When the empire crumbled the catfolk knew immediately they lacked the resources to deal with the gnoll problems, so instead they freed them, deflected blame to the empire of old and welcomed them as brothers of the sand. The gnolls bought it hook line and sinker and have treated their former slave masters as blood brothers ever since. Which is why gnolls kinda get rolled under the Catfolk faction. Gnolls still raid neighboring cities, but the cities have learned to send a catfolk representative, and instead of skulls the gnoll tribe takes a tribute from the town. It gets turned into a bit of a holiday as the gnolls drink and make merry and kinda wreck up the place but better than it would’ve been. But not all villages are willing to part with hard earned goods even if the alternative is a fight with a much better opponent. Gnolls much prefer it when the villages want to fight. Now, about that one permanent residence the gnolls have. The Empire’s ships chased gnoll tribes across the desert. There was no escaping them, no cities to hole up in, no cover to be found. The empire actually forced the gnolls all the way through and out the other side of the desert (though the empire did not sail that far and as far as the maps officially report the desert is the end of the map). The desert transitions to a semi-arid region and even has oasis’s dotted around. There are of course, giant termites. By giant, worker termites are the size of a medium dog, soldiers are the size of a rhino. Gnolls, being gnolls, attacked one of the termite mounds enmass. It was a long and bloody conflict. Eventually the gnolls managed to take the mound for themselves. They actually ended up forming a mostly symbiotic relationship. The gnolls rather violently wiped out the soldier caste of termites and captured the queen. Instead of killing her they opted to just eat any and all soldier eggs she produces but allow the workers to stay. The diet suffused the gnolls with the termite pheromones so the termites treat them as kin and they now act as a far superior soldier caste. Visitors have to rub a form of resin into their fur or skin or they get attacked, though a week or so of eating the soldier eggs causes the pheromones to build up in your system and takes about a month of not eating them for the pheromones to go away. The workers tend to the fungus gardens and the queen while the gnolls live in a underground air conditioned city. As for what the termites eat, they’re a little like leafcutter ants in that they’re farmers. They have a symbiotic relationship with a species of shambling mound. They feed the shambling mound organic matter. Meat. Pulped and rotted plant matter, fertilizer and etc. The shambling mounds are intelligent but indolent. Like the fatties from Wall-e. They get carried everywhere, up the mound to get sunlight, deep into the depths of the mound that is damp with moisture from the abyss and are hand fed by workers. They produce giant bitter tubers that the termites eat. The gnolls can’t really control what the termites do. And the colony is largely left on autopilot except for the care takers in the queen’s chambers. They found out that if you tap on a worker’s head a few times it will try to regurgitate food for you but they cannot tell the termites to dig in specific areas. They tried starting a mining area but the workers kept trying to seal it up. A few of the gnolls found that by feeding larva some of the bioluminescent goo in the tunnels they A start to glow and B slow their growth significantly. Most gnolls have a pet grub they use as a personal lantern. And there’s a large number of glowing workers who retained the bioluminescent bacteria in their guts. - Stats: * means it's homebrewed Gnolls * Ability Score Racial Traits: Flexible (+2 Str, +2 Con) (2 RP) * Type: Humanoid (gnoll) (0 RP) * Size: Medium (0 RP) * Base Speed: Normal (0 RP) * Languages: Xenophobic (0 RP) Gnolls start knowing their racial language only. * Fast Movement: +10ft (1) ** Gnolls have a fast lolloping gait. * *Bite: (3) 1d6 ** Gnolls have sharp canine teeth and powerful jaws designed for cracking bones to get marrow. Bonus natural attack. * Relentless: +2 on CMB to bull rush (1) ** Gnolls favor shoving their prey to the ground or pinning them and ripping out their throats. * Carrion Scent: (1) ** Gnolls have an adept nose for finding corpses in the desert. Most desert travelers know to burn their dead to throw off the scent. * Master Tinker (1) (No skill bonus just the proficiency bonus + gnolls start play with one weapon made from bone.) ** Gnolls have a strong warrior culture centred around weapons. All gnolls carry weapon that they have made and likely used their entire life. Typically made from shaped glass (when the dunes burn) or bone. * Carrion Eater: (1): Can eat rotten or raw meat without ill effect. ** They're hyenas what do you expect? * Favored class bonuses: ** Fighter: Progression bonus to using bite attack in combat. ** Barbarian: Progression bonus to increasing bite damage ** Ranger: ** Cleric: *** While clerics are not typically an option, the nomadic life style of Gnolls allows them to bring their gods with them. War gods typically come along on raids. Protector gods stay with camps. A few of these 'gods' even awaken after many generations. War gods awaken faster due to bloodshed in their name. * Racial Alternative Traits * Racial Feats: ** Long Maw: Gain Grab when using bite attacks. *** Sharp Tooth: Gain Attach which automatically grapples when using bite attacks **** Red Thirst: Cause 1 STR and 1 CON damage per round while attached ** Name: Gain full scent ability with a bonus to detecting carrion * Racial Weapon: ** Long Claw: A long whiplike cord with a carved bone claw on the end. It is designed to wrap around a target and snag on itself. *** 1d3 non-lethal damage *** 15ft reach *** Trip/Grapple - on a successful grapple check the target is hoisted into the air. *** The end of the Long Claw is typically fastened to the plinth that the gnoll rides. If the attack misses by 10 or more it snags onto something nearby, possibly something firmly attached. * Racial Archetype ** Ideas: *** Take a missile Plinth as an animal companion *** Use missile plinth like blackblade but like a dancing shield instead. * Player Notes: ** Names are sacred and not given willingly to outsiders. ** Players are either named by the party such as with Grr the Gnoll. ** Alternative Gnolls operating in foreign territory take local names to use. ** Gender in society: Hyena culture is very sexually diamorphic, females are very much incharge and males are subservient, brutally so. While yes, I have utilized much of hyena biology and culture when re-fleshing out gnolls, deliberately having one gender subservient to another limits the player appeal. In the same way that female players shouldn't expect to receive the same blunt sexism in games as there was in real world history. It is ultimately Fantasy. The leaders are female but otherwise just like human kings are traditionally male in fantasy there is no change other than chromosomes.